[OLUG] problems with passwd

[John P McDaniel]

I am using shadow, although the passwd version I use does not
recognize the -S command.  I have reinstalled the following packages:
libpam-devel-0.66-3, libpam-0.66-3, pam-apps-0.55-6, misc-shadow.

I am using Caldera OpenLinux 2.3 with a few updates.

Here is a little more info; in an xterm session:

[jpm] ~$ passwd
passwd: cannot retrieve user's name
[jpm] ~$ telnet localhost
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.

Welcome!

login: jpm
Password: 
You have old mail in /var/spool/mail/jpm
Last login: Fri Apr 14 20:20:41 2000 from localhost on ttyp0

Welcome!

[jpm] ~$ passwd
Changing password for jpm
(current) UNIX password: 
[jpm] ~$

So, it seems that after telnet'ing, everything works fine.  I have
compared environment variables between the two sessions and they seem
identical (only a few new ones having to do with the display). 

I am truly baffled by this.  Any other ideas, folks?

- John

On Tue, 11 Apr 2000, Vincent wrote:

> John P McDaniel wrote:
> > 
> > anyone ever see this happen before?
> > 
> > [root] ~$ passwd
> > passwd: cannot retrieve user's name
> > [root] ~$ whoami
> > root
> > [root] ~$
> > 
> > ------ or -------
> > 
> > [jpm] ~$ passwd
> > passwd: cannot retrieve user's name
> > [jpm] ~$ whoami
> > jpm
> > [jpm] ~$
> > 
> > this happens to all users on my machine if they are in a X session or
> > remotely logged in but users can execute passwd just fine if they log
> > on to the console.  root can passwd if i specify a username.
> > 
> > Thanks in advance,
> > - John
> > 
> 
> Are you using shadow or MD5?
> (this will tell you)
> passwd -S user
> 
> I would try reinstalling/upgrading PAM and shadow-utils and see if that changes
> anything.
> 
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